Netbeans is written in Java so naturally it's slow and buggy as hell, but it's still the best IDE I've used. I just wish it had better C++ support. It's like it only supports the parts of C++ with direct analogues in Java; no support for C++1x or even moderately complex template code.

Netbeans is written in Java so naturally it's slow and buggy as hell, but it's still the best IDE I've used. I just wish it had better C++ support. It's like it only supports the parts of C++ with direct analogues in Java; no support for C++1x or even moderately complex template code.

I use Netbeans for coding java and can't say that it is slow or buggy. I haven't written c++ for some time so i can't say anything about the c++ features of netbeans. I'm using it on an ancient single core with 2 gig ram and recognized that the look and feel (mainly the gtk look and feel) you set for swing influences performance quite a bit. So this is what i added to my netbeans_default_options in $whateverinstalldir/etc/netbeans.conf

Emacs: teh winnar (particularly on my kinesis ergo keyboard which has alt and ctrl on thumb-keys). It's a little more awkward on the Pandora where I can't seem to press alt and ctrl at the same time...

But seriously, emacs rocks. I still use vim for memory-constrained fast edits, but for prolonged editing sessions, I wuv teh emacs.

I tried emacs once but couldn't get beyond the requirement for excessive (ab)use of Control.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about emacs either.
But at least I'd say emacs had the right idea, creating a highly scriptable editor with different modes for each special task.
Vim just seems to have tried a fundamentally different approach that doesn't offer any benefits.
And excessive use of Ctrl beats excessive use of Esc, if you ask me.

I bought the O'Reilly book on Emacs back when I started getting more heavy into my Linux use (I just picked Emacs over vim arbitrarily) and concentrated on learning one good editor. I can use vim, but my hands goto the Emacs buttons naturally.

Haven't used eclipse extensively enough to make a really fair comparison. I will say that eclipse actually feels a little slower than netbeans, but it seems to have the advantage in terms of recognizing valid C++ syntax. To me netbeans has a better look and feel, and seems easier to configure (but leaves a lot to be desired in that department)._________________Your argument is invalid.